MapmyIndia, the country’s oldest digital mapmaker, is moving away from a pure-play enterprise-focussed strategy, with the launch of a tracking device for cars, targeting consumers directly.

“We have always been customer-focussed. Though many use our maps either in cars or via other applications, they did not know our brand,” said Rakesh Verma, Founder, during an interaction with BusinessLine .

The company has worked with a range of companies from Coca Cola India in the mid-1990s and automotive players such as BMW and Hyundai, to start-ups such as Ola and PhonePe in the navigation space. Verma said it is time to build the brand among customers and so the company is launching the vehicle-tracking device to build its identity among the end-consumers.

The device will be available in two variants for online and offline stores with the pricing between ₹3,000 and over ₹6,000. “It will be an after-market product and sold mostly in car accessory stores and e-commerce sites,” Verma said.

Vehicle tracking is a huge market in India with rising car ownership. “But the market is highly unorganised and expensive,” he said.

Similar products in the market cost between ₹8,000 and ₹10,000 currently. Verma said the company aims to capture the market with its pricing, and it will also leverage its existing network in the automotive space to push the product.

Google Maps has been the unrivalled market leader in the consumer segment since it made inroads into the market 10 years ago.

“They (Google Maps) came at a fast pace and cannibalised the ecosystem with their search asset,” Verma said.

MapmyIndia, which was building digital maps, had to change its strategy to focus on enterprises. The company’s recent move, Verma said, will give it the necessary edge in the consumer space. This idea is driven by the recent focus on data localisation mandated in the proposed data protection bill in India, where MapmyIndia has an advantage as opposed to Google.

Verma says the product was the result of ongoing effort since the time the company started building its digital map product in 1995.

During the course of building the product, the company mapped all of the 6 million km roads in India and created a digital code for them, a feat no other player has done.

“We are still working on the software and will launch it soon,” he added.

comment COMMENT NOW